Meetinghouse
Of first period rooftops
and first travels since
you learned from angles
natives round what wind
and divide what rain
of snow sliding off
sun-stroked
degradations.
It captured the eye’s
arrow
meaning heaven
less than ground
meaning parsnip, jonquil, codman claret, emily, picholine, meetinghouse blue
swallowed
the landscape
to threaten
what keeps darkness whole
dictates growing patterns
a reverse burial,
the roof ensures
existence, permanence.
“There must be eight trees about sixteen inches square”
You were an owl erect on the side of the road
gist for joist, sur pièce
You were glacier sleep in 90 degree weather
loft feather-edged, well drawn
You were a gravestone buried so deep it resembled a baby tooth
end sides for plank frame
All you needed was a square, a saw, a hammer, a
rule.
When trees are bare (I mean populus, madder, pinus, and hackberry),
you see the roof for the house
you are in a solid climate
when the trees are full, clouds threaten
the ground would be paved.
Long faces on opposite sides of a curtain
wallpaper peeling like waiting onions
Do not think “love missed you like a city bus”
it will make you sick
You can not think
wrought from avoidance
Stares, —I could not
be fixated
or be plunged into strong
solitude.
I saw these things and you knew these things
Glass clean between us,
I drank in every possibility
to make it straight, make the arrow strange
So much so the rooftops
begged composure.
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